How many times has Donald Trump disqualified himself from holding the most powerful job in the world? You be the judge.

It has been 13 months since Donald Trump announced his presidential bid and, in the same speech, called Mexican immigrants rapists.The ensuing drip feed of Trumpian absurdities and offenses has had a desensitizing effect. We know that Trump is a racist, a misogynist, an authoritarian, and a narcissist, but we’ve lost track of the many, many specific things he has said and done that disqualify him from the office he seeks.

So we have compiled a list of specific things that make Trump an unacceptable candidate for the presidency. Some are policy proposals that should be outside the bounds of debate, like punitive torture. Some are casual vulgarities, like his description of Rosie O’Donnell. You might not agree that each individual item on the list is disqualifying in isolation—you can vote those down, and vote up the ones you find especially egregious—but the list’s cumulative weight makes its own statement.

An experimental drug swept sticky plaques from the brains of a small number of people with Alzheimer’s disease over the course of a year. And preliminary results hint that this cleanup may have staved off mental decline.

News about the new drug, an antibody called aducanumab, led to excitement as it trickled out of recent scientific meetings. A paper published online August 31 in Nature offers a more comprehensive look at the drug’s effects.

“Overall, this is the best news that we’ve had in my 25 years doing Alzheimer’s clinical research,” study coauthor Stephen Salloway of Brown University said August 30 at a news briefing. “It brings new hope for patients and families most affected by the disease.” CONTINUED

I think the media — from lofty New York Times to Politico — is addicted to chasing down alleged Clinton scandals which, on deeper investigation, turn out to (as Joy Reid said) result in them having to admit that “there’s no there there.”

Trump is a legitimate scandal machine, he has so many that the public doesn’t care. His scandals are egregious and have been documented six way from Sunday.

HoHummm — so he shot somebody in Times Square, big deal; but what about Bill Clinton using Hillary’s taxpayer funded computer to play on-line poker?

Trump has more Teflon on him that 100 sets of cookware. By and large the mainstream media has given up reporting on them. Despicable Bannon getting a top spot on his campaign? Pervert Roger Ailes working for the campaign. HoHum.

The media is desperate for something that will stick to one of them, and have given up on Trump. That’s leaves Hillary. So they keep throwing allegations at her without thorough investigation hoping something will stick. They figure the clickbait titles will get attention, increase readers, and the day later “ops, so sorry, we were wrong” articles are published only when the Clinton campaign or another journalist (often on MSNBC) catches them in the distortion or outright life.

Reporting like this used to get journalists fired. Hell, they got fired for less.

Now these media are behaving like there’s a journalist “morning after pill” that can undo the accident of the night before.

From his website: Jack Marshall, the primary writer of Ethics Alarms, is president and founder of ProEthics. He has taken the experience gleaned from a diverse career in law, public policy, academia and theater, and applied it to the field of legal, business, workplace and organizational ethics. A graduate of Harvard College, where he specialized in American Government and leadership, and Georgetown University Law Center, he practiced criminal law in Massachusetts and organization law in the District of Columbia, and led non-profit organizations devoted to education, public policy research, and health. With Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ed Larson, he compiled and edited The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow, published in 2007. He also wrote the one-actor drama, “A Passion for Justice: An Evening With Clarence Darrow,” which premiered in 2001 and was produced at Maryland’s Olney Theater, starring Paul Morella.

Ethicist Jack Marshall is no fan of Hillary Clinton.

I don’t mind him holding her to the same standard as Trump, in fact he should, but he went out of the way detouring down the bias road in this piece calling her “pathetic” 16 times.

7. This, as much as it is a terrible reflection on Clinton, the State Department and the F.B.I., is more evidence of the unconscionable incompetent and miserable leadership of Barack Obama. His Secretary of State, giving her the benefit of the doubt, was an incompetent, blithering fool. His State Department was technologically inept and reckless, to a dangerous degree. Did he know? Did he check? Did he care? Pathetic!

8. Hillary’s corrupted supporters and most of the news media have been cheering on this woman, in part on based on the claim that she is uniquely qualified for the Presidency by experience.

Aha, I thought, and lesson in ethics from a professional…. I was sure wrong.

He was making sense until this:

Rationalization 8, The Trivial Trap or “No harm no foul!”, relies on#3. Consequentialism, or “It Worked Out for the Best” for its dubious logic, but is less demanding. #3 posits that unethical conduct that ends up having beneficial or desirable results has been purged of its unethical nature. #8 argues for an even more lenient standard, holding that as long as the unethical conduct—usually a lie—has no negative effects, it can’t be wrong. The Dead Horse-Beater’s Dodge, carries things even further with the theory that as long as a situation can’t be made worse by wrongful conduct, the conduct itself can’t be wrongful. The most famous invocation of #8A of recent vintage is Hillary Clinton’s exasperated question during the Benghazi hearings, “At this point, what difference does it make?” Her argument: a lack of candor now about the fatal events in Benghazi can’t bring back the dead, so why harp on it?

In ethics, wrongful conduct is usually identifiable by its nature and intent. “This can’t make things any worse” is an assumption that individuals seldom can make with guaranteed accuracy, and it usually presumes consent from the supposedly bottom-lying individual or organization that the unethical act is done to. Get the informed consent, 8A devotees, and then we’ll talk.

Sounds pretty good, except he removed the supposedly damning comment from greater context from the Benghazi hearing “At this point, what difference does it make?” Adding insult to injury, he opines that she said this in an exasperated manner. Even if he watch the hearing, it’s still his impression.

Here’s the context. See what you think.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WISC): No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that -- an assault sprang out of that -- and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that.

Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.

Johnson: OK. Thank you, Madame Secretary.

There is certainly a place for a professional ethicist to offer opinions about politics and politicians. However I think it behoves them to eschew snarky comments.

Aristotle influenced me, but Play-Doh shaped me.

HuffPo and the f-word — add a few more F’s and it’s okay — and appropriate in this case.

I want to follow up the wishful thinking piece with something about wishful Hillary thoughts. The first debate is Sept. 26 so I’m thinking about how she’s going to trounce Trump in the debate and get a three point post-debate bounce from 17 to the magic number of 20. In order to write this I've had to ponder seriously what her best strategy for the debate will be. I’m leaning towards her winning without any deliberate attempt to prompt him into revealing that he doesn’t have the temperament to be president. I think she should ignore whatever says in order to challenge her with lies and distortions and respond by saying that she respects the voters to decide what’s true and what isn’t.Of course, this will force the post-debate commentators to do the work for the voters.

She should fully answer every question, a walk in the park for her, without ever veering into talking points or comparisons between her and Trump.

I believe she’s had professional voice coaching and will come off speaking “lowly and slowly,” choosing carefully when she is going to raise her voice ever so slightly without increasing the pitch, for emphasis. She won’t show any anger, irritation, or frustration.She’ll have a few prepared sound bite phrases sure to be replayed which will expose Trump for the scoundrel and liar, the xenophobe and hate monger that he is, but they will be so well crafted that Trump won’t even know why the audience is laughing.Trump will speak as if there’s no microphone and he has to shout so the people in the rear seats can hear him. Hillary will have made the audience ignore the admonition to be silent because they can’t help laughing at a Hillary line. Trump doesn’t know how to be funny. The more Trump comes across as out of control the more Hillary will come off as in control.My wish is that by the time of the debate Hillary will already be 17 points ahead of Trump (as described below). The more behind Trump is the more desperation he will feel, although being as full-of himself as he is he may not consciously accept this. I expect his sycophantic advisors will tell him the polls are wrong. They’ll tell him he’s really ahead.If as I predict Kellyanne Conway has already bailed as the last truth-to-power advisor, all that will be left will be bootlicking toadies. So he may very well go into the debate trying to believe he is ahead in the polls, but his denial (as a psychological defense) will have become tenuous and brittle in the face of the reality being reported extensively in the media.

While we’ll all be watching MSNBC dissect the debate immediately afterwards (easy for me since Oregon is three hours earlier) I expect Hillary will be exhausted and just go to sleep. Savvy politico that she is she’ll slip easily into dreamland knowing she exposed Trump for the poseur that he is.Hillary will wake up in the morning with the New York Times, Washington Post, and maybe the New York Daily News just for their front page (I can’t wait to see that one) on her breakfast tray, along with a mimosa (fresh squeezed orange juice and Cristal of course). She'll tune into Morning Joe, and relax and revel in her landslide in the making.
Find Hal:

The first sign will be that when he’s another five points down in the polls Kellyanne Conway will throw a life preserver and leap overboard where the Florida billionaire Mike Fernandez, who supported Jeb Bush but just announced he’s going to vote for Hillary, will pick her up in his yacht.

​Without her guiding hand, his campaign will begin to list like the Lusitania.

1915 paintinAs the campaign begins to take on water he’ll desperately try to appeal to disparate sections of the electorate that he has no chance of winning. He will come across as so disingenuous that he’ll look like Al Jolson at the Apollo trying to convince Harlem that he’s really…bl

Mary I is unpleasantly remembered as "the Bloody Mary" on account of the religious persecutions which prevailed during her reign.

Flailing about as the polls inch towards the big two-oh he’ll try the ultimate Hail Mary and find a psychic to channel Mary Tudor as a replacement for Kellyanne Conway.

Mary will convince him to do what he does best which is incite fear, trepidation, and loathing among members of his base.

As hate crimes increase Trump, with his hair taking on a darker hue and flop sweat slicked down over his forehand, will have a brilliant idea (all his own) that the problem is that the hats aren’t enough, and he will order tens of thousands of armbands to be given out at his fewer and further between rallies, and little American flags which his supporters, now sensing defeat, will trust upwards in the air while shouting “make America great” and “USA, USA.”

Unfortunately for Trump this will look more and more like a Reichstag rally.

By now the RNC will have cut off funds to him desperately sending them down ballot. All of his large dollar donors will have cut their losses. His own coffers will have been depleted. He just has no money left to put on rallies.

And then the day will come when Trump, mentally and physically exhausted, refusing to admit defeat and wanting to hang on to the bitter end has only his telephone to rely on to get his message out.

So get ready Dana Carvey.

Newsworthy:Florida billionaire Mike Fernandez spent $3 million boosting Jeb Bush in the GOP primaries and even gave $100,000 last year to America Rising, a Republican group committed to destroying Clinton.

But in the opinion section of Thursday's Miami Herald, Fernandez outlines what he frames as a patriotic and moral duty for all Republicans to abandon Trump and vote Clinton.

He even questions Trump's mental health.

"As a Republican who has contributed millions of dollars to the party’s causes, I ask: Why has our party not sought a psychological evaluation of its nominee?” from The Hill

Trump’s speech reminded me of one of Hitler’s most famous infamous speeches.Comments here.

This isn’t really a diary in that I really don’t have much to say about the following beyond what I put in the title. It is a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s diary which began:

President Enrique Peña Nieto likened Trump to Hitler..... hmmmm.... let's see, the ONLY problem Germany had when Hitler rose to power was their Jews. Every wrong in the typical non-Jewish German’s life should be blamed on the Jews. Hmmmm, the ONLY problem America has according to Trump is our undocumented Mexicans (and our Muslims and Syrian refuges).... what similarities?

Even comparing any living murderous, genocidal dictator to Hitler is perilous. Among the dead 20th century despots who exterminated millions of their citizens we could list our World War II ally Stalin alongside Hitler. But Hitler is different for Americans because the Holocaust cost the lives of millions of our relatives and millions of our soldiers, not to mention civilians killed in Britain and Europe.

I am uncomfortable even using Hitler and Trump in the same sentence.

Trump isn’t like Hitler except in comparatively “ very superficial” (note the quotes) ways. That doesn’t mean comparing ways that Trump is similar to Hitler or Mussolini, the two dictators he’s been compared to, isn’t something we should avoid. We just need to be very careful because noting the similarities can easily side-track rational discussion. The entire diary.

Of course you can ready the entire speech to put the portions I include below, but just scanning his 1939 words before he fully implemented “the final solution” will be chilling enough.

Substitute illegal immigrants or even Mexicans for every time her referred to Jews. When you read it try to hear Hitler himself in his unique voice throwing the red meat of hate and blame to his adoring crowd.

They all had found each other in the long struggle of the national socialism for the leadership to defend their interests and were in cahoots with Jewry. The politicizing bishops of the various churches spread their blessing hands over it.

To the Jews and the other enemies of the State, however, it (communism) appeared to be the last flicker of the national power of resistance. And they felt that when it had disappeared, then they would be able to destroy not only Germany but all Europe as well.

The rescue of Europe began at one end of the Continent with Mussolini and Fascism. National Socialism continued this rescue in another part of Europe and at the present moment we are witnessing in still a third country the same drama of a brave triumph over the Jewish international attempt to destroy European civilization.

​This is just the beginning, here’s the rest.

In addition, there was the further fact that even then the Germany of that day was believed to be in the final analysis a not entirely amenable factor with regard to the domination of the world which the Jews were attempting to establish.

But these other nations are continually being stirred up to hatred of Germany and the German people by Jewish and non-Jewish agitators. And so, should the warmongers achieve what they are aiming at, our own people would be landed in a situation for which they would be psychologically quite unprepared and which they would thus fail to grasp. I therefore consider it necessary that from now on our Propaganda Ministry and our press should always make a point of answering these attacks and, above all, bring them to the notice of the German people. The German nation must know who the men are who want to bring about a war by hook or by crook.

It is my conviction that these people are mistaken in their calculations, for when once National Socialist Propaganda is devoted to the answering of attacks, we shall succeed just as we succeeded inside Germany herself in overcoming, through the convincing power of our propaganda, the Jewish world enemy.

The nations will in a short time realize that National Socialist Germany wants no enmity with other nations, that all the assertions as to our intended attacks on other nations are lies — lies born out of morbid hysteria or of a mania for self-preservation on the part of certain politicians; and that in certain States these lies are being used by unscrupulous profiteers to salvage their own finances, that, above all, international Jewry may hope in this way to satisfy its thirst for revenge and gain, that on the other hand this is the grossest defamation that can be brought to bear on a great and peace-loving nation.

These attempts cannot influence Germany in the slightest in the way in which she settles her Jewish problem. On the contrary, in connection with the Jewish question, I have this to say: It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them, which is surely, in view of its attitude, an obvious duty. The arguments that are brought up as an excuse for not helping them actually speak for us as Germans and Italians.

First, 'We' — that is, the democracies — 'are not in a position to take in the Jews.' Yet in these empires there are not even ten people to the square kilometer. While Germany with her 140 inhabitants to the square kilometer is supposed to have room for them!

Today we are merely paying this people what they deserve. When the German nation was, thanks to the inflation instigated and carried through by Jews, deprived of the entire savings that it had accumulated in years of honest work, when the rest of the world took away the German nation's foreign investments, when we were divested of the whole of our colonial possessions, these philanthropic considerations evidently carried little noticeable weight with democratic statesmen. Above all, German culture, as its name alone shows, is German and not Jewish, and therefore its management and care will be entrusted to members of our own nation. If the rest of the world cries out with a hypocritical mien against this barbaric expulsion from Germany of such an irreplaceable and culturally eminently valuable element, we can only be astonished at this reaction. For how thankful they must be that we are releasing apostles of culture and placing them at the disposal of the rest of the world. In accordance with their own declarations they cannot find a single reason to excuse themselves for refusing to receive this most valuable race in their own countries. Nor can I see a reason why the members of this race should be imposed upon the German nation, while in the States that are so enthusiastic about these 'splendid people' their settlement should suddenly be refused with every imaginable excuse. I think the sooner this problem is solved the better, for Europe cannot settle down until the Jewish question is cleared up. It may very well be possible that sooner or later an agreement on this problem may be reached in Europe, even between those nations that otherwise do not so easily come together.

The world has sufficient space for settlement, but we must once and for all get rid of the opinion that the Jewish race was only created by God for the purpose of being in a certain percentage a parasite living on the body and the productive work of other nations. The Jewish race will have to adapt itself to sound constructive activity as other nations do, or sooner or later it will succumb to a crisis of an inconceivable magnitude.

One thing I should like to say on this day, which may be memorable for others as well as for us Germans: In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power, it was in the first instance the Jewish race that only received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State and with it that of the whole nation and that I would then, among many other things, settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face.

Today I will once more be a prophet. If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and this the victory of Jewry,but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe! For the time when the non-Jewish nations had no propaganda is at an end. National Socialist Germany and fascist Italy have institutions that enable them when necessary to enlighten the world about the nature of a question of which many nations are instinctively conscious, but which they have not yet clearly thought out. At the moment Jews in certain countries may be fomenting hatred under the protection of a press, of the film, of wireless propaganda, of the theater, of literature, etc., all of which they control. [...]"

The nations are no longer willing to die on the battlefield that this unstable international race may profiteer from a war or satisfy its Old Testament vengeance. TheJewish watchword, 'Workers of the world, unite!' will be conquered by a higher realization, namely, 'Workers of all classes and of all nations, recognize your common enemy!’

Announcements by American film companies that they intend to produce anti-Nazi — that is, anti-German — films can but induce us to produce anti-Semitic films in Germany. Here, too, our opponents should not permit themselves any delusions as to the effectiveness of what we can do. There will be very many States and peoples who will show great understanding for supplementary instruction of this kind on such an important subject! We believe that if the Jewish international campaign of hatred by press and propaganda could be checked, good understanding could very quickly be established between the peoples. It is only such elements that hope steadfastly for a war. I, however, believe in a long peace! For in what way do the interests of England and Germany, for example, conflict?

Our relations with the United States are suffering from a campaign of defamation carried on to serve obvious political and financial interests, which, under the pretense that Germany threatens American independence, is endeavoring to mobilize the hatred of an entire continent against the European States that are nationally governed. We all believe, however, that this does not reflect the will of the millions of American citizens who, despite all that is said to the contrary by the gigantic Jewish-capitalistic propaganda through the press, the radio and the films, cannot fail to realize that there is not one word of truth in all these assertions. Germany wishes to live in peace and on friendly terms with all countries, including America.

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What do I think about and what I do I think about it?

May, 1, 2016

I migrated everything from April to the basement file cabinet, so fitting of Spring, this blog starts anew, unfortunately, again it’s Trump on my mind. The archives for the two months I have been sharing cyberspace with billions of bloggers are below.

If you are a new reader, welcome. I do this blog alone, but always welcome critiques and ideas from you, I mean you, whoever is actually reading these words.